FreedomWorks - New York Timeshttp://www.freedomworks.org/fieldtags/new-york-times
enLiberal Media Becoming Establishment GOP’s Chief Cheerleaderhttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/liberal-media-becoming-establishment-gop%E2%80%99s-chief-cheerleader
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A Tuesday <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/business/economy/business-losing-clout-in-a-gop-moving-right.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=0">profile</a> in the <em>New York Times</em> detailing corporate America’s waning influence on the Republican Party pointed out that “big business leaders have seemed relatively powerless” as Republican leaders struggle to control small-government conservatives in Congress. That’s good news for conservatives who support limited government, but it unfortunately seems like “big media” has supplanted big business as establishment Republicans’ main ally in their quest to drive conservatives and libertarians out of elected office.</p><p>John Nolte of Breitbart News first <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/30/GOP-Establishment-and-the-new-york-times-sitting-in-a-tree">pointed out</a> the unholy alliance between the <em>New York Times</em> and big government Republicans in July: “It is hard to tell who is using who, but to see the GOP Establishment become so useful to the <em>New York Times</em>' ongoing jihad against conservatives is more than a little troubling.”</p><p>The growing awareness that the <em>Times</em> has been volunteering itself as a mouthpiece for Republicans who want conservatives out of the party hasn’t done much to reduce the <em>Times’ </em>efforts. Just last week, <em>Times </em>columnist Thomas Edsall <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/can-republicans-paint-the-white-house-red/?ref=thomasbedsall">informed</a> readers that, according to senior Romney strategist Stuart Stevens, Democrats would win the presidency in 2016 if “Republican primary voters go over the edge” by nominating Sens. Ted Cruz or Rand Paul for the position instead of a moderate like Jeb Bush.</p><p>Democrats quoting losers on what Republicans should do in order to win makes as much sense as Ann Coulter quoting Michael Dukakis on what Democrats should do to win. Yet the <em>Times </em>would never try to pass the latter off as credible commentary.</p><p>In fact, Edsall regularly runs commentary quoting establishment Republicans who complain that conservatives are ruining the party. In July, Edsall <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/has-the-g-o-p-gone-off-the-deep-end/?smid=fb-share&amp;_r=0">quoted</a> a deluge of Republican lobbyists and strategists who said that too many people were becoming focused on ideas and not focused enough on winning. “Too many ideologues have come in,” one former Bush official said. “You don’t win by what they are doing.”</p><p>However, the symbiosis between left-wing Republicans and the media extends well beyond the <em>New York Times</em>. The day after Nolte’s piece describing the bias of the <em>Times</em>, <em>The Hill </em><a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/314911-paul-cries-uncle-offers-christie-beer">published</a> an analysis of Sen. Paul’s feud with Gov. Chris Christie, which had ended with Paul offering to have a beer with Christie. The piece, titled “Paul cries uncle,” explained that Sen. Paul’s effort at magnanimity constituted a concession to Christie.</p><p>Using the words of former McCain strategist Ford O’Connell, the piece explained that in order to win the 2016 presidential nomination, “Rand Paul will certainly have to appeal to establishment voters…. he knows that right now Chris Christie is the darling of establishment Republicans. If he continues to jab Christie so openly, establishment Republicans will work hard to defeat Rand.”</p><p>We never see mainstream media outlets warning of electoral consequences for Republican politicians who abandon their limited-government positions (Ahem. Mitt Romney). Yet we see ad nauseam threats that conservative politicians will be defeated if they ignore left-wing or establishment Republicans.</p><p>Of course, no one complains about the media more than establishment Republicans who desperately want to look like outsiders. The Republican National Committee (RNC) made news when it <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/rnc-vote-debates-nbc-cnn-95615.html">voted</a> last month not to cooperate with NBC and CNN in organizing Republican presidential debates in 2016. While that was the right thing to do, it did not necessarily make the process any more helpful to conservative Republicans.</p><p>In fact, conservatives had already proposed a rules change in 2012 that would have given the RNC more authority over debates. It would have required that any candidate reaching one percent in national polls be included in debates sanctioned by the RNC. It would have prevented networks from arbitrarily excluding candidates they didn’t deem worthy.</p><p>Led by Romney Legal Counsel Ben Ginsberg, establishment Republicans defeated the proposal on grounds that the RNC had no place dictating which candidates were to appear in debates. In other words, television networks were left free to determine which candidates were fit to participate. If candidates like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul are judged too extreme to invite to debates, no problem – the RNC has done nothing to exclude them, the story goes. All of the blame will fall on those darn liberal networks, party leadership will assure us.</p><p>The Republican establishment acts like the mainstream media is hostile to their interests. But the reality is, when it comes to undermining those leading the charge for small-government, they are often partners in crime.</p></div></div></div>Thu, 05 Sep 2013 17:41:56 +0000RTakala57822 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/liberal-media-becoming-establishment-gop%E2%80%99s-chief-cheerleader#commentsThe Summer's Best Fiction: Progressives' Detroit Post Mortemhttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/summers-best-fiction-progressives-detroit-post-mortem
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The kiddies are going back to school all over this great land but it is still officially summertime on the calendar. If you haven't gotten as much beach reading done as you would have liked to, I've got some works of extraordinary fiction for you to peruse, but only if you're a big fan of the fantasy genre.&nbsp;</p><p>As we have uncomfortably witnessed the once great city of Detroit descend into Third World status, most objective observers have noticed a direct connection between the half century long dominance of the Big Labor/Democrat machine in the city's governance and its financial ruin.</p><p>Then there is the take of the progressive fringe that dominates modern American media and the Democrat party. And nowhere is this detachment from reality more manifest in all its "Get me a bib and my nurse!" glory than in the pages of the <em>New York Times</em>.&nbsp;</p><p>Naturally, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/opinion/krugman-detroit-the-new-greece.html" target="_blank">the Nobel Laureate who makes Barack Obama look worthy</a> got it all rolling.&nbsp;</p><p>After some perfunctory finger-wagging about debt and deficits (something he does in his sleep, and to neighborhood pets who wander by), Professor Paul wandered into a lecture about public pensions, apparently completely unaware that <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2013/06/11/california-on-brink-pension-crisis/" target="_blank">California is still in the US</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>What is the conclusion that the former Enron lackey comes to in this drunken Econ 101 class?&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p>So was Detroit just uniquely irresponsible? Again, no. Detroit does seem to have had especially bad governance, but for the most part the city was just an innocent victim of market forces.</p></blockquote><p>Unwittingly, Krugman is closer to the truth than he probably wanted to be. He admits that Detroit was governed badly but this doesn't constitute something unique-true, as this same formula for disaster is being repeated at the state and local levels in Democrat dominated places all over America (again-my home state California or, if you prefer "the seasons", see Illinois).&nbsp;</p><p>But ignore all of that bad governance because market forces or something.&nbsp;</p><p><em>Poof-the Democrats are absolved!</em></p><p>Once Krugman gets this kind of ball rolling we can usually expect a reinforcing drumbeat across various media and the Detroit story has been no exception. Most have merely ignored the overwhelming Democrat influence in Detroit but <em>MSNBC</em>'s less stable version of Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, managed to <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/andrew-lautz/2013/08/05/msnbcs-schultz-democracy-dead-detroit-republican-parasites-blame" target="_blank">blame "Republican parasites"</a> for the city's travails. There were similar predictable "Pay no attention to that donkey behind the curtain" screeds from almost every lefty blog as well.&nbsp;</p><p>As always, however, the heavy lifting is being done by the <em>Times</em>. This past weekend, yet another progressive du jour in the Opinion pages teed up a gem titled <em><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/the-wrong-lesson-from-detroits-bankruptcy/" target="_blank">The Wrong Lesson From Detroit's Bankruptcy</a></em>. It's more of the same cotton candy progressive political philosophy: a lot of words that they think are making points but are really just filling space.&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p>So much is packed into the dramatic event of Detroit’s fall — the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history — that it’s worth taking a pause to see what it says about our changing economy and society, and what it portends for our future.</p></blockquote><p>Economy, society, fall fashion...anything but the politics of the people who were in power there for 50+ years. It should also be noted that Detroit's tumble into economic oblivion can only be considered a "dramatic event" if you are a progressive who is drinking the hard stuff.</p><p>For breakfast.&nbsp;</p><p>So what led to all this "drama"?</p><blockquote><p>Failures of national and local policy are by now well known: underinvestment in infrastructure and public services, geographic isolation that has marginalized poor and African-American communities in the Rust Belt, intergenerational poverty that has stymied equality of opportunity and the privileging of moneyed interests (like those of corporate executives and financial services companies) over those of workers.</p></blockquote><p>Here we go into boilerplate far-left territory. Following in the "communism has just never be done right" tradition, progressives will <em>always</em>&nbsp;tell you that government fails only when it doesn't spend enough on this or that (Krugman is especially fond of doing this). Generally, they begin barking "Infrastructure!" or "Education!" like trained seals when the cries for a bigger money train are sent up. As <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/detroit-teachers-w71000-salaries-leave-work-to-protest-while-only-7-percent-of-their-students-can-read/" target="_blank">Detroit's teachers were doing rather well</a> for a broke city, it had to be the former. For the moment, anyway.&nbsp;</p><p>"<em>Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Give him temporary construction work and you can usually keep him employed just long enough to vote for you in the next election.</em>"</p><p>There is plenty of complaining about the fact that everything isn't equal for everyone everywhere at once. Yes, in the minds of the far lefties, this is still an achievable thing. And what surely is considered a party foul by the other <em>Times</em>&nbsp;opinion writers, there is some deviation from Krugman.</p><blockquote><p>We didn’t just let the market run its course. We made an active choice to embrace short-term profits and large-scale inefficiency.</p></blockquote><p>So...not market forces? Whatever will we do to get the hive mind buzzing in harmony again?!?!? Return to the mantra, of course, this time in the proper order:</p><blockquote><p>And on the national level, we need policies — investment in education, training and infrastructure</p></blockquote><p>Any discussion of Detroit's problems that doesn't begin with the iron-handed Democrat rule (Coleman Young was mayor for twenty years-that's a machine) and the unhealthy relationship with Big Labor is a pile of disingenuous garbage. Yes, there are regional factors and the changing role of manufacturing in America over the past several decades must be considered but can hardly be given the majority of the blame. </p><p>Cities dependent upon a single industry can reinvent themselves in a rather short time if that industry declines. Pittsburgh is less than three hundred miles from Detroit and has done this rather nicely.&nbsp;</p><p>Unfortunately, cities that won't admit to what got them in trouble in the first place aren't going to be resurrected any time soon. The people making excuses for them are helping delay any real possibility of a thoughtful, well-planned emergence from the financial ashes.&nbsp;</p></div></div></div>Tue, 13 Aug 2013 13:34:18 +0000StephenKruiser57749 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/summers-best-fiction-progressives-detroit-post-mortem#commentsThe Agony of Elitehttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/agony-elite
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The best read of the weekend was a <em>New York Times</em> opinion column. No, I’m not kidding.</p><p>Not only did token conservative <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-secrets-of-princeton.html?hp&amp;_r=1&amp;" target="_blank">Ross Douthat</a> blow the lid on the self-perpetuating elitism of the Ivy League, he did it in the pages of the elites’ favorite Sunday morning newspaper.</p><blockquote>Susan Patton, the Princeton alumna who became famous for her letter urging Ivy League women to use their college years to find a mate, has been denounced as a traitor to feminism, to coeducation, to the university ideal. But really she’s something much more interesting: a traitor to her class.<br><br>Her betrayal consists of being gauche enough to acknowledge publicly a truth that everyone who’s come up through Ivy League culture knows intuitively — that elite universities are about connecting more than learning, that the social world matters far more than the classroom to undergraduates, and that rather than an escalator elevating the best and brightest from every walk of life, the meritocracy as we know it mostly works to perpetuate the existing upper class.</blockquote><p>Although the column was exceptional, my favorite part was the horrified reaction of <em>Times</em> readers in the comment section. Mockery of the "Well, I never!” responses made for an <a href="http://twitchy.com/2013/04/07/ross-douthat-ivy-league-culture-perpetuates-social-inequality/" target="_blank">entertaining</a> <a href="http://gawker.com/5993966/new-york-times-commenters-are-having-a-hard-time-with-ross-douthats-column-on-the-ivies?fb_action_ids=10151512787604367&amp;fb_action_types=og.likes&amp;fb_source=other_multiline&amp;action_object_map=%7B%2210151512787604367%22%3A512795262090800%7D&amp;action_type_map=%7B%2210151512787604367%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&amp;action_ref_map=%5B%5D" target="_blank">Sunday</a> on Twitter. The outrage provided keen insight into the minds of elitist liberals, who Thomas Sowell calls “the anointed.”</p><p>Below is a sampling of the reactions, presented just as they appeared on the <em>New York Times</em> site. The paper shutdown the comments section before noon, perhaps to spare their readers any further embarrassment.</p><blockquote><ul><li>What I would like to ask Mr. Douthat is, can you think of any other reason besides elitist snobbism, that a PhD in philosophy might not marry or be close friends with, an auto mechanic. Could it be that they wouldn't have anything to talk about? Or even a lowly English major trying to share his/her love of literature with an uneducated bank teller. How about a mathematics professor sharing his life with a beautician? I in no way wish to disparage any of the professions I mentioned…</li></ul></blockquote><p>Oh, of course not. Many of the commenters mockingly conflated matriculation to a certain school with “smart.”</p><blockquote><ul><li>So Ross is advocating at young people graduating for ivies should go find a good for nothing low life who has no interest in raising kids, having a job, or staying Out of jail, so that we can produce dysfunctional kids who are all mediocre in order to to create greater "social equality"?</li><li>Frankly, I don't understand what the author wants. Does he WANT a regression toward the mean? Should a summa cum laude Harvard graduate feel socially obliged to fall in love with, marry, and have children with a high school dropout to raise the dropout's chances of improving his progeny's status?</li><li>[I]sn't it more efficient to impeccably educate a small group of preternaturally intelligent and talented people, inundating them with social consciousness so that they go into the areas of the country where the education gap is truly atrocious and improve the educational systems, infrastructures, and governance therein?&nbsp;</li><li>Douthat's essay is nonsense… Would he prefer a law allowing smart people to only marry dumb people?</li><li>Really? This is news? Smart people like to marry smart people and help their children live comfortable productive lives? …Why aren't they marrying stupid people and encouraging their kids to drop out of high school and get a job at Walmart?&nbsp;</li><li>I find it hard to perceive what Mr. Douthat's suggestion is, if any. Maybe intelligent people should squeeze themselves into a relationship with people of more limited cognitive abilities for the sake of "true" diversity? Maybe wealthy women will choose to raise their kids in the slums, in order for true America to be represented in every zip code?</li></ul></blockquote><p>Some of the responses sounded like conservatives making fun of pretentious academics.</p><blockquote><ul><li>This is reductive nonsense. Princeton is not Columbia. It is not Cornell. Nor is it Brown, or Penn. It is most decidedly NOT Swarthmore…</li><li>Endogamy is an amazingly complex subject.</li><li>As a character in Shaws's "Bleak House said a century ago, "A soul is an expensive thing to maintain."&nbsp;</li><li>Mfr. Douthat, did it ever occur to you that educated people marry educated people not to perpetuate inequality and go status-grubbing together but rather because they like the same philosophers and poets and composers?&nbsp;</li><li>I'm an ivy league grad and frankly, it's hard for me to find a partner who doesn't look at me quizzically if I make a reference to Henry James. Or if I mention something I heard on Radiolab or read in the Economist… [I]t has been really hard for me to find even one date with someone who I feel has the same intellectual interests as I do. I want a partner I can talk about The New Republic with, and who likes to watch documentaries, and then actively discuss them afterward.</li><li>As a Princeton student AND a queer female of color from a working class family, I'm ashamed I and my fellow non-white, non-straight, non-privileged classmates are getting lumped into Ross' blanket characterization of Ivy League students!</li><li>Since social mobility and rising meritocracy define movement of traditional society towards modernity the old elite resting on hereditary privilege and status gives way to the rise of new meritocratic elite to be distinguished with its acquired ability as against the ascriptive social traits...</li></ul></blockquote><p>Sorry, I nodded off there for a minute.</p><p>Some people in the comments thought that Douthat (and I on Twitter) were somehow insulting all Ivy Leaguers. Far from it. I would have loved the opportunity and I appreciate those who excelled there.</p><p>The problem arises when certain members of that group assume that their diploma makes them a better person than those without one.&nbsp;This is the academic version of the “we-know-what’s-best-for-you” attitude of the current leadership in Washington, D.C. Despite their lofty credentials, the “best and brightest” have made quite a hash of things.&nbsp;</p><p>Instead of demeaning everyday Americans, the anointed could learn a few skills. A self-employed plumber could teach them how to balance a checkbook. A weekend soccer coach will show them how to get kids to work together toward a common goal. An office manager can point out that if she creates a mountain of red tape, productivity will plummet.&nbsp;</p><p>It’s time our leaders put a higher value on common sense than they do on “proper breeding.”</p><p><em>Follow me on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ExJon" target="_blank">@ExJon</a>.</em></p></div></div></div>Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:27:25 +0000joncgabriel57226 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/agony-elite#commentsHow To Become a Target of the Media: Report the Factshttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/how-become-target-media-report-facts
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>This is not a story about policy or legislation. This is a story about journalism, and the all too cozy relationship between 'reporters' and the public officials they're supposed to hold accountable. It's been two weeks since Democrat State Senator Ginny Burdick of Oregon was to have held a town hall to answer questions on the current legislative session. <a href="http://watchdogwire.com/oregon/video/oregon-state-senator-cancels-town-hall-due-to-scheduling-conflicts-appears-to-have-none/">As reported locally</a>, Senator Burdick lied about "scheduling conflicts" causing her to cancel this town hall, which has yet to be rescheduled.<img src="http://d7.freedomworks.org.s3.amazonaws.com/Ginny_Burdick.png" alt="State Senator Ginny Burdick" title="State Senator Ginny Burdick" class="imagecache imagecache-full" width="160"></p> <p>A citizen journalist <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=VXX-Vc013eg">released a video</a> that showed Burdick returning home at the time that the town hall was to have been conducted and staying in all night, not even answering a knock at the door. The next day, I called Burdick's office to verify her claims of scheduling conflicts, but instead confirmed that she made the whole thing up to avoid her constituents.</p> <p>Burdick has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4THUxG3oZY">repeatedly admitted that she fabricated the story</a> to avoid having to face constituents who disagree with her stance on the Second Amendment. Burdick evidently does not fear hard questions from the mainstream media, and is fully comfortable admitting the lie when their cameras show up. It seems obvious that she has no reason to even expect hard questions from her friends in the liberal Portland press.</p> <p>Meanwhile, a coordinated smear campaign has been waged by blogs, mainstream news outlets and national columnists against the reporter who verified and reported the story. I was famously labeled "<a href="http://www.blueoregon.com/2013/03/ginny-burdick-cowardly-gunsters/">the most irrelevant man in Oregon politics</a>" by the progressive blog, Blue Oregon, in a story critical of the original report. Of course, four subsequent stories have been devoted to Mr. Irrelevant by that site - along with a <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/gun_rights_supporters_post_vid.html#incart_most-comments">news story in the Oregonian</a>, two columns in the Oregonian (one of which was corrected and then retracted), a hastily assembled editorial board statement in the Oregonian, <a href="http://www.katu.com/politics/Burdick-says-she-canceled-town-hall-after-threats-195504991.html">a report on KATU News</a> that only gave Burdick's side of the story, a report on KOIN Local 6 News that gave both sides, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/opinion/nocera-politics-by-intimidation.html?_r=0">a hit piece in the New York Times</a> by the rabidly anti-gun Joe Nocera, and (after a <a href="http://5440fight.com/2013/03/14/burdick-lies-again/">claim from her chief of staff</a> that she would have no further comment on the matter) an appearance on <a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/12/a-question-of-intimidation-oregon-lawmaker-vs-gun-rights-extremists/">Al Sharpton's show on MSNBC</a> (the title of which I, along with millions of other nonviewers, am too lazy to look up).</p> <p>Incidentally, the video of the show appeared on MSNBC.com with a blog post that was a wholesale cut and paste job, under byline of Morgan Whitaker, of the Joe Nocera column in the Times. Well, it was almost a 100% copy job of the original - the only thing they left out were my comments in Joe's original column. I confirmed via email with Mr. Nocera that he "most certainly did not" grant them permission to copy his work.</p> <p>The coordinated talking points have been that the video was creepy and intimidating, and crossed some sort of unwritten rule. Well, guess who used to be the Director of Opposition Research for the Democratic Party of Oregon, in charge of training political trackers? None other than Jeff Fisher, newly hired as <a href="http://watchdogwire.com/oregon/2013/03/11/ginny-burdick-claims-victimhood-intimidation-while-employing-professional-tracker/">Ginny Burdick's chief of staff</a>. If this is an unwritten rule, it apparently only applies to one party. If Burdick were so offended and creeped out by this practice, why does she employ the guy who trained all the trackers for her own party as her chief of staff? Further, if she were so dedicated to elevated political discourse and respect for the position, why has she herself engaged in a pattern of harassing and intimidating behavior, such as <a href="http://watchdogwire.com/oregon/2013/03/06/claiming-harassment-or-state-senator-burdick-has-history-of-trying-to-get-state-employee-fired/">using her public position to try to get a public worker fired</a> for disagreeing with her?</p><p>All of this has been clearly coordinated to give Senator Burdick cover in the mainstream media and to deflect from the actual story - she lied to her constituents and made up a story to duck their questions. That's the real story and they're hoping you're not paying attention.&nbsp;</p></div></div></div>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:00:34 +0000LT180057137 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/how-become-target-media-report-facts#commentsKristof of The New York Times Demagogues Austerityhttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/kristof-new-york-times-demagogues-austerity
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Over the last couple of years, Paul Krugman and <em>The New York Times</em> have championed a bigger stimulus, which equals more government deficits and debt.&nbsp; Recently, another <em>New York Times</em> scribe, Nicholas Kristof, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/opinion/kristof-romneys-economic-plan.html?_r=0Kristof " target="_blank">claims</a> Romney's economic plan is equal to the austerity plan of many European counties, particularly Germany and England.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Kristof makes no attempt to describe Romney's position on America's debt crisis.&nbsp; Instead, Kristof quotes a number of Republicans – Karl Rove, Joe Wilson, Jeff Sessions and more - who&nbsp; praised the austerity plans of many European nations.&nbsp; Kristof then concludes a Romney-presidency would stagnate America's economic growth to that of England and Germany.&nbsp; All without addressing Romeny's approach on the issue.&nbsp; <br><br>Kristof's tact seems to be the following:&nbsp;</p><p>Republicans praise austerity.&nbsp; Germany (allegedly) and England are floundering economically.&nbsp; Romney is a Republican.&nbsp;&nbsp; Austerity is deemed to be bad.&nbsp; Hence, don't vote for Romney.&nbsp;</p><p>Obviously, these leaps in reasoning support the <em>New York Times</em> mantra; austerity is bad and America needs more stimulus.</p><p>However, every sentient American knows Romney selected Paul Ryan to be his running mate.&nbsp; Ryan is the most-knowledgeable elected official in America on budgets, deficits and debt, and the mastermind who developed <em>The Path to Prosperity:&nbsp; A Blueprint for American Renewal</em>.&nbsp; Ryan's proposed budget passed in the House of Representatives, but was not considered in the Senate.<br><br>Why did Kristof choose not to challenge Ryan's budget?&nbsp; Why did he quote a few Republicans' off-handed remarks about Europe, which has different problems than America? Rather than debating a serious proposal, Kristof and <em>The New York Times</em> would rather demagogue anything that cuts government spending.<br><br>In May, I compared the spending cuts in Sweden and Germany to Ryan's proposed budget.&nbsp;&nbsp; Robert Barro of Harvard found the balanced budgets of Sweden and Germany produced the best economic growth in Europe, and Veronique de Rugy of George Mason praised that these countries did not “jack up taxes.”&nbsp; From my previous <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/teda/cut-spending-%E2%80%93-cut-taxes-sweden-%E2%80%93-ryan-%E2%80%93-tea-party" target="_blank">blog</a>:</p><p>Since 2009, Germany and Sweden cut spending and balanced their budgets, which produced good economic growth, substantially better than the economic growth of United States and the remaining European countries.&nbsp;&nbsp; Robert Barro a Harvard economist reports in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>:</p><p>Two interesting European cases are Germany and Sweden, each of which moved toward rough budget balance between 2009 and 2011 while sustaining comparatively strong growth—the average growth rate per year of real GDP for 2010 and 2011 was 3.6% for Germany and 4.9% for Sweden. If austerity is so terrible, how come these two countries have done so well?</p><p>Veronique de Rugy of George Mason University succinctly states: The answer is that they constrained spending without jacking up taxes. <br>Ryan seeks to restructure government programs, which would reduce spending by approximately $4 trillion in 10 years.&nbsp; The Republicans in the House have passed his budget.&nbsp; The Senate has not passed a budget in three years.&nbsp; President Obama has presented a budget that increases spending enormously, and never is balanced. This budget was resoundly defeated by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.&nbsp; Obviously, the President's plan is to “jackup” taxes, and will not be just on the rich.</p><p>America must have a debate on budgets, deficits and debt.&nbsp; Ryan has earnestly addressed these issues.&nbsp; These issues should have been the center of our presidential debates.&nbsp; They were ignored by the politicians and most of the media.&nbsp; It's a shame. &nbsp;<br><br></p></div></div></div>Fri, 02 Nov 2012 05:06:37 +0000teda55709 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/kristof-new-york-times-demagogues-austerity#commentsProgressives Annoyed with Democratic Processhttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/progressives-annoyed-democratic-process
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Many members of the progressive intelligentsia and political class have exalted China’s investment in high-speed rail and its illusory investments in “green” technology, as eminent examples of the efficiency of one-party autocracy. Besides the Orwellian logic, these assertions have been shown to be demonstrably marked with inconsistencies and subsequent failures of policy.</p>
<p>Most notably, Thomas Friedman of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html"><em>New York Times</em></a> continues to pine for the wonders of autocratic central planning. Despite the historical repudiation of this economic model, he sneers at the lengthy and arduous debate inherent in democratic capitalism. If only President Obama was unshackled from constitutional and democratic constraints! Then, Friedman believes, the wonders of “green” energy and high-speed rail could finally be shoved down the throats of the American people, and the crisis of global warming could be averted.</p>
<p>The administration has echoed this sentiment, as President Obama has noticed that the rigors of being President of the United States and the pesky observance to the Constitution have thwarted many of his policy schemes. His staff noted that the President has ascertained that it would be much easier to make decisions if he were <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265430/unhappy-president-jonah-goldberg">Hu Jintao</a>, the Chinese Premier.</p>
<p>Nancy Pelosi has declared that elections have had a ruinous effect on our overwhelming sense of “shared values”. At a recent lecture at Tufts University, Pelosi <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265491/disappearing-dollar-mark-steyn?page=2">pompously</a> asked Republicans to “take back your party, so that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election — because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do.” </p>
<p>Translation: more status quo spending on failing schools, more bankrupting stimulus spending, more unsustainable entitlement spending and that annoying concerned American citizenry should not be allowed to dissent.</p>
<p>Regardless of these audacious arguments, the democratic process and empirical evidence that has been generated have averted even more destructive spending and tremendous debt. There is lengthy evidence on the failures of arbitrarily imposed “green” energy initiatives and now history as weighed in on high-speed rail, as its purported success in China has been a mirage, says the<em> Washington Post’s</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinas-train-wreck/2011/04/21/AFqjRWRE_story.html">Charles Lane</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Rather than demonstrating the advantages of centrally planned long-term investment, as its foreign admirers sometimes suggested, China’s bullet-train experience shows what can go wrong when an unelected elite, influenced by corrupt opportunists, gives orders that all must follow — without the robust public discussion we would have in the states. The fact is that China’s train wreck (high-speed rail investment) was eminently foreseeable.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>F.A. Hayek profoundly remarked that “We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.” The best way to facilitate this process is through true constitutional democracy, not through the imperious whims of politicians and “experts”, who turn out to be sometimes very foolish.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:45:44 +0000jvajas54781 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/progressives-annoyed-democratic-process#commentsGeneral Electric is 'Winning the Future'http://www.freedomworks.org/content/general-electric-winning-future
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>General Electric reported that its first-quarter earnings have <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576276564256544634.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories">increased</a> by 77 percent compared to the fourth-quarter of 2010. This comes as the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html">reported</a> that GE paid zilch on their taxes, while raking in over $14 billion in profits in 2010. Even worse, GE actually received $3.2 billion in tax benefits.</p>
<p>“Our environment continues to improve and get better," <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576276564256544634.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories">said</a> Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Immelt. Indeed, GE benefits immensely from Obama administration initiatives aimed at having government pick winners and losers in the economy. </p>
<p>GE was major contributor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign and certainly has reaped the rewards of Obama administration economic policy. Immediately, GE invested $ 200 million in lobbying on Capitol Hill and top tax lawyers, who contrived ways to shelter their money from our byzantine tax code. GE has invested heavily in President Obama’s pipe dream “green” energy technology, which has remained stagnant despite all the subsidies and platitudes designed to ramp up demand for otherwise unwanted and inefficient energy sources. </p>
<p>The reason GE has been investing in these “green” energy sources, despite the lack of a thriving market, is because the stimulus package contained a loophole in the tax code that allowed for politically connected big business and ingenious freeloaders to make profits through government handouts. This is all at the expense of taxpayers, of course.</p>
<p>Shortly after his appointment to President Obama’s Economic Advisory Board, CEO Jeffrey Immelt announced that GE would <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2011/03/16/chevy-volt-ayn-rand-opinions-patrick-michaels_2.html">purchase</a> 50,000 government motors produced Chevy Volts. The Volt’s sales have continued to decrease, so why would GE want to purchase these increasingly unpopular cars? Simple, the government incentivizes its purchase through a $7,500 tax credit. So, GE got a reduction of $350,000 on its purchase through the government imposed generosity of American taxpayers. </p>
<p>Legendary economist Milton Friedman proclaimed that he supported “free enterprise and not big business”. President Obama subsidizes big business at the expense of free enterprise, repackaging it as “winning the future”. One thing is for certain, with these policies and ridiculous tax code in place, General Electric knows it will win the future.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:45:46 +0000jvajas54776 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/general-electric-winning-future#comments